Tonight’s Evening Brief is brought to you by Women in Communications and Technology – National Capital Region. Please join us at our 2018 season closer! This year’s send-off event will highlight our ongoing initiative Her Words, Our Wisdom with a few special guests sharing their “2-minutes” of wisdom LIVE.

Good Evening,

The Lead

We start tonight on Parliament Hill, where MPs on the House of Commons immigration committee have agreed to hold at least two emergency meetings on Canada’s response to irregular border crossers seeking asylum. The hearings must be held before August 3.

MPs plans to hear testimony from Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale, Social Development Minister Jean-Yves Duclos and Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen. An invitation has also been extended to provincial counterparts. (Ontario’s Minister of Social Services Lisa MacLeod tweeted last week she was open to appearing as a witness at the committee.)

Two young members of a family claiming to be from Colombia get set to cross the border into Canada from the United States as asylum seekers on Wednesday, April 18, 2018 near Champlain, NY. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson

Monday’s meeting come after committee members were forced to cut their vacations short after Conservative and NDP MPs called for an emergency meeting to discuss the influx of asylum seekers, whose numbers have strained resources in certain Canadian cities, including Toronto.

ICYMI: the hot-button political issue had Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Principal Secretary Gerald Butts defending the Trudeau government’s handling of the file on social media over the weekend against Conservative criticism. Desmarais has that story, too.

In Canada

Sixteen past and present members of Trudeau’s youth council are urging the federal government to bail out of the Kinder Morgan buy-out. In a letter to the prime minister, who is also this country’s youth minister, they argue the Trudeau government’s decision to purchase the project betrays the young people who helped elect the Liberal government in 2015 in part because of the party’s commitment to the environment and battling climate change. Desmarais has the political hat trick of the day.

The Canadian government is facing a new challenge at the World Trade Organization after the Trump administration filed five separate international complaints over retaliatory tariffs imposed on steel and aluminum. As The Canadian Press reports, other countries targeted at the WTO by Washington include Turkey, China, the European Union and Mexico. Washington continues to insist the tariffs imposed on steel and aluminum are justified — a point its international trading partners dispute.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports that Canada is considering both quotas and tariffs to stop a spike in imports of foreign steel being diverted from the U.S.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford, right, and Lt.-Gov. Elizabeth Dowdeswell arrive ahead of the speech from the throne to open the new legislative session at the Ontario Legislature at Queen’s Park in Toronto on Thursday, June 12, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Frank Gunn

Ontario’s new trade minister is getting an early taste of tariff talk as he tries to avoid a devastating blow to the province’s economy. Jim Wilson, who also holds the economic development and job creation files, will be in Washington on Thursday to speak at a hearing on possible tariffs on auto imports. Our Marieke Walsh has more.

Doug Ford’s government unveiled their first piece of legislation today and Hydro One is clearly in Ford’s sightline. The proposed kneecaps the independence of Hydro One by giving the provincial cabinet a veto over executive compensation. The 26-page omnibus bill tabled in the legislature on Monday also cancels the White Pines wind farm and legislates an end to the York University strike. Walsh has that story, too.

The province’s new health minister says Ontario students will still learn about consent, cyber safety and gender identity this fall despite a plan to scrap an updated sex-ed curriculum. Lisa Thompson said Monday certain elements of the curriculum put in place under Kathleen Wynne will remain in place — an apparent backtracking that comes after she told reporters last week educators would be told to follow the 1998 curriculum. The Canadian Press has more.

In other Toronto-related news: the city’s board of public health will demand the federal government decriminalize all drugs. The board was presented today with a report by Toronto’s medical officer of health that urged city officials to call on the government to treat drug use as a public health issue, rather than a criminal one. The Canadian Press has that story, too.

Washington went topsy-turvy this afternoon after a bizarre press conference in Helsinki between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladmir Putin. As Politico reports, the American president publicly sided with Putin on election interference, telling reporters he doesn’t see “any reason” why Russia would have wanted to hack the Democrats’ servers.

U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hand with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the end of the press conference after their meeting at the Presidential Palace in Helsinki, Finland, Monday, July 16, 2018. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

The U.S. president was at one point directly asked whether he believed U.S. intelligence officials, which he acknowledged think Russia is involved. Then he said this: “I have President Putin, he just said it’s not Russia,” Trump said. “I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be. But I really do want to see the server. But I have confidence in both parties.”

Trump’s remarks come after special investigator Robert Mueller indicted 12 Russian nationals on Friday over allegations of a state-ordered election interference.

Top Republican officials were quick to rebuke the U.S. president. As CNN reports, retiring House Speaker Paul Ryandirectly contradicted the president several times Monday afternoon, telling the president Russia is not a U.S. ally. “There is no question that Russia interfered in our election and continues attempts to undermine democracy here and around the world,” Ryan said in a statement. “That is not just the finding of the American intelligence community but also the House Committee on Intelligence.”

Putin seemed to take a play out of Trump’s playbook today. Just days after the U.S. president left the Queen waiting for 15 minutes, the Russian president rolled up almost half an hour late to today’s meeting in a monstrous limousine The Washington Post has that story.

The Kicker
As if America needed two giant screaming babies. The giant Trump baby balloon that painted the skies with an orange hue in London is now coming to the U.S., after a New Jersey activist crowd-funded enough for a tri-state tour.